life, leadership & walking with Jesus

A Readiness to Receive

“You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it. I don’t want Isaiah’s forecast repeated all over again: Your ears are open but you don’t hear a thing. Your eyes are awake but you don’t see a thing. The people are blockheads! They stick their fingers in their ears so they won’t have to listen; They screw their eyes shut so they won’t have to look, so they won’t have to deal with me face-to-face and let me heal them [Matthew 13:11-15]

This intrigues me. I want God’s word on situations, after all, there are plenty of voices out there. It can be tricky to hear the right one.

It’s important for me to position myself well in order to receive the right input, the right message. It makes me think of the old-fashioned dial on my parents radio that was so frustrating when I was trying to listen to the football when I was younger. If it wasn’t quite tuned in correctly you very often got a few stations all at the same time and that was pretty annoying.

I need to get the dial on my heart set right. According to these words of Jesus, with a ready heart, insights and understandings flow freely. You have to have a readiness for receptivity. No readiness then any trace of receptivity disappears.

That leads to an obvious question – am I in a position of readiness?

I must learn to see and not just stare.

I must learn to listen attentively so that I get it.

I must learn to unblock my head, take my fingers out of my ears and open my eyes.

Like a successful athlete waiting for the starters gun, I need to be ‘in the zone’. When they are in the zone, athletes are better able to suppress and ignore negative thoughts, achieving a flow that can give them a remarkable advantage.

There must be a similar benefit for me as Christian. If I am in the zone, with my heart set right, dialled in, receptive to the insights and understandings God revealed by His Holy Spirit then surely I am helping myself to be better able to suppress the enemy of negativity or fear and thereby experience life in all it’s fullness and the blessings of living for God.